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The Canadian Football League’s Man of the People, commissioner Randy Ambrosie, charmed about 200 football fans early Friday night at Lansdowne Park’s Horticulture Building.

It was the second stop on a cross-country series of Q and A sessions – titled Randy’s Road Trip – for the commissioner, who was hired eight months ago.

Among the topics: Halifax as the league’s 10th franchise, the number of coach’s challenge flags per game, retro jerseys, player safety, an earlier start and finish to the season, an afternoon starting time for the Grey Cup (maybe 4 p.m.), Canadian quarterbacks and the timing of TV commercials.

Ambrosie sat on a small stage at the front, flanked by Redblacks GM Marcel Desjardins and coach Rick Campbell.

Speaking about the potential addition of Halifax as an expansion franchise, which would fill out a five-team East Division to go along with five teams in the west, Ambrosie said: “In theory, you would probably play 12 of your 18 games in your conference. You would play six of your games outside the conference – three (home) and three (away). That would cut down a lot of the wear and tear on our teams.

“There are some really good practical reasons why a 10-team situation would be good from a scheduling point of view.”

Ambrosie also talked about the league going to a crew structure with the officials, who will also rotate through the Command Centre.

“Maybe their assignment one week isn’t a game assignment, it’s a Command Centre assignment,” said Ambrosie. “We want to make a stronger connection between the officials who are on the field and the people who are making our Command Centre decisions. I also need to say this, officiating is a hard business – it’s probably up there in terms of all the thankless work you can do.”

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